Kalle Mattson performs on the River Stage during Bluesfest. Click on the thumbnail for more photos.
The relationship between Ottawa folk rock band Kalle Mattson and the crowd that gathered at their July 6 Bluesfest performance can best be described as “Thick as Thieves” – one of the group’s biggest songs.
Listeners should be “Crazy yet reserved when both are needed,” Kalle Wainio, the Centretown vocalist behind the band, said in an interview before the show.
And they were. An enthusiastic crowd built up as Kalle Mattson played some of their signatures and some new material – but as Wainio told his fans, it’s not new to them.
Wainio even spurred on fans and newcomers throughout the show.
“It’s an awesome festival. It’s really fun,” he said. “If people see the show and they dig it, that’s the best right there. That’s all you can hope for.”
The band formed around Wainio’s songs but some of the boys from Sault Ste. Marie moved to Ottawa and welcomed some locals to make up the group.
This is not Kalle Mattson’s first time taking Bluesfest. They were part of the 2011 lineup as well and had a decent turnout, but Wainio said their slot was not so great. They weren’t following Hamilton’s rock band Arkells that year.
The crowds have gotten bigger since one of the band’s music videos went viral in November 2011, racking up over one million views and garnering the Ottawa indie group international acclaim and coverage in Time Magazine and CBS News. The short video is a comic animation of the history of the world set to the quirky and romantic “Thick as Thieves.”
The three-and-a-half-minute short, made on a paltry $250 budget, also got the attention of the National Post, which called them one of five bands poised to break out in 2012. But what does “breaking out” mean for Wainio?
“I’m not sure what that means either,” he said. But he thinks real success would be to just play his own songs and make a comfortable living doing it – every musician’s dream. “It’s not about selling a million records,” he said, and it’s just not reasonable, but to put out what he has in just over three years is itself an accomplishment.
Centretown News was given a preview of their upcoming new stop-motion short for “Water Falls.” Wainio was right when he said it’s not as cutesy as their last sleeper hit. But it still has the quirks the indie band’s fans might expect, with the lyrics, “Like a water fall, I watch life pass you by” matched with stop-motion of San Francisco’s real-life landmarks passing by the constantly moving camera.
Wainio just wants people to listen to their music. This is why all of the group’s tracks are free for download. For small indies, it’s the right route to take.
Kalle Mattson has a new record set to bow in August and the band will be on a full-fledged west coast tour come October.